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Paul C�zanne: Two Sketchbooks

A partial copy after Alonso Cano's Dead Christ, undoubtedly made from the wood-engraved reproduction in the chapter on Cano in Charles Blanc's Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles, Ecole espagnole (Paris, 1869); the shading in fine, parallel strokes suggests such a graphic model. Concentrating on the figure's head and torso, Cézanne omits the legs, yet curiously includes the hands of the angel supporting Christ, as if he were reproducing the original mechanically, without interpretation. This copy, in turn, provided a model for one of his bather types (see Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1987-53-37b); indeed, the watercolor version of this type (Rewald, John. Paul Cézanne: The Watercolors. Boston, 1983, no. 124) may have been made directly from this copy, which contains several watercolor washes. Theodore Reff, from Paul Cézanne: Two Sketchbooks (1989), p. 122.